


The Old Ways

by deathwailart



Series: The Courts [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Banshees, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Character Study, Gen, Motherhood, Scottish Character, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-06 17:32:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shirley is less a mother, more a matriarch ready to see her bloodline continue as it should.</p>
<p>Part of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/718075/chapters/1330354">these</a> <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/718075/chapters/1330355">verses</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Old Ways

Little and less of her is a mother even as she raises Caoimhe with Blair. Matriarch, provider of wisdom swooping in and out when not howling in her role with the fairy dog haunting every step. Cassandra is a more a mother to Shirley's daughter, maternal in the same way Iona was to Shirley and Cedric, warm words and arms, reassuring smiles, ever honest and ever loving. It's not to say that Blair is a poor provider of affection, far from it, doting on their daughter the way every father should. As far as he's concerned the sun rises and sets in their daughter's backside. Blair's a good man and she's done him so wrong that her sense of obligation to him will likely never be righted but every time she tries he sees through her efforts, smiles and asks her what she wants for dinner. It's so domestic it should sicken her. It's all she could have had life turned out differently.  
  
Shirley loves her daughter. She paid a heavy price for something she never wanted at first but she holds herself away. Teaches poise as well as magic and duty but tells her little of how different Caoimhe is without the pain every other member of their line suffered. The pain Shirley will hold onto for the rest of her lifetime, a life that will span many long years beyond that of her daughter or her daughter's daughters and so on and so forth. She watches as her only child grows into herself, makes friends, spends time in Alea as Shirley did herself. Fionn is gone now. Back home to Ireland, unable to be around anything connected to Shirley. She can hardly blame him; killing her mother is not a thing she will ever be at peace with, a stab of guilt that can never be predicted. On those days she hovers over Caoimhe and stays to watch her sleep, stroking her hair long after she's asleep, whispering histories her ears will not hear. Blair allows it and to some their arrangement must look strange, him and his ex sharing a house together with their daughter and she wants him to be happy even if the jealous part of her hisses _mine, mine_ when she looks at him, when she thinks about him with anyone else.  
  
Caoimhe grows bright and beautiful with her dark curls and bright eyes, Blair's laugh and smile and she takes to the water like a fish, selkie heritage showing. She loves Corbin too even if he's a bone of contention between her and Blair. She can't imagine ever getting closer to Corbin than she is at present where he's a companion but not quite a friend, someone given to her for a purpose and who is happy to be in her service at all times. Blair doesn't understand that. Not really. She can't blame him though but she isn't about to keep her daughter from someone who is sworn to look after her and keep her safe until she passes on to the Otherworld, her daughters too and her daughter's daughters. That is the task Shirley and Corbin have so that an ancient bloodline lives on where one once sought to break it. Shirley forever frozen.  
  
It's going to take time to come to terms with that.  
  
She will watch her father grow old and grey instead of running into the possibility of him outliving her like he would have done her mother had events been allowed to take their natural progression. Her twin brother, her best friend and sister-in-law, their sons, her daughter and all their children who will follow on with a bloodline that stretches out in ways she cannot fathom yet. Already she knows how each of them will die. Knowing when is worse; sometimes she cannot see their faces because she sees bones underneath, an empty skull with hollow eyes and on those days and nights she slices through her skin over old silver-white scars and slips her skin to soar. Crows don't care about death unless there is blood to wet their black beaks. She flies with them until she can come back to be the enigmatic matriarch (and that is her role, the eldest now though she will never be the crone) at the head of the table smiling behind her glass of wine. Her daughter and nephews don't know what she does for a living, they don't know why she stays so young or why Iona is dead before her time but she knows they pick up the sadness in her, the pangs of pain and melancholy that cripple her as much as the pain and grief of her bloodline do. Worse than that is the regret that threatens to swallow her. Days curled up and snapping at anyone who gets too close, Blair leaving her behind a closed door and Corbin sleeping as a huge hound at her feet the way he did with their goddess.  
  
The smell of blood clings to her. Her blood from the sacrifice to her goddess, her offering to the past. The blood of her mother coating her hands as she clutched the scythe she stole and the rotting stench of the Dullahan's blood, sour and pungent that lingers beneath it. She wonders if anyone else can smell it on it. They say some animals can smell death and they must smell her miles off from how she carries it with her always, every death her line has ever met all the way back to the founding of the banshees and all the death yet to come. When Caoimhe is old enough to feel it then she'll have to break down. She'll have to confess and hold her daughter close although Caoimhe might hate her mother. She has every right to and Shirley will not fight her, she'll leave but still watch, will still have a hand outstretched towards her shoulder to squeeze and say _I'm here darling, I'm right here_ even if she is looked at with disgust and hate. At least her daughter will be free of pain and grief. She'll be able to remain light on her feet and without burden, she'll be able to laugh and skip through life without a crushing weight that still leaves Shirley bedridden from time to time even if she has been reassured that she'll get used to it and use it to strengthen her own spine so she can walk tall like a conquering queen.  
  
For now she tucks her knees beneath her after a night of wailing with her voice only a whisper, stroking Caoimhe's dark hair, telling her stories of old gods who yet live in hidden places who made them both, stories to make her grow strong. Blood and battle her stories are made of, sacrifice and pain. Not the stories a mother should tell a little girl but she's not a mother. She's a banshee, preparing her daughter for her duty the way a woman king prepares her soldiers for war.


End file.
